Read More

The latest city transfer news

Videos are uploaded within minutes of a game finishing, enabling a manager, head of recruitment or director of football to run the rule over a player from the comfort of his office.

Additionally, the political element is key.

Scouts in the field now spend almost as much time gathering intelligence off the field as they do watching a player on it; speaking to agents, forging relationships with a player’s family and friends, and doing their best to stay a step ahead of their rivals.

Few industries are more competitive, or, in football terms at least, more important.

Kelechi Iheanacho (Image: Plumb Images)

The bid

So once a player has been identified, the next step is the transfer (or loan) offer.

Pretty straightforward, you’d think, but there is more than one way to start a transfer.

The most obvious is for a buying club to submit a formal written offer for a player, seemingly by fax even in this day and age, which will then be considered by the selling club.

Read More

But it is just as common for clubs to contact trusted agents to act on their behalf, either in finding an available player from another club, or finding a buyer for their own unwanted player.

These agents act as intermediaries between the buyers and the sellers, and can set the wheels in motion for a deal that otherwise may not have been struck.

Tapping up?

Football League rules state that “a player under contract shall not directly or indirectly make any approach to another club without having obtained the prior written consent of the existing club to who he is contracted.”

Basically, that all transfer deals should be started from scratch.

Reality, of course, is different.

Rarely will a bid be submitted for a player, without the buying club having contacted the player’s representatives to see if he would be interested in a move, and if so what kind of wages he would be after.

Read More

The bulk of a deal is often set up before a fee has been agreed between the buying and selling clubs.

Negotiations

For those of us in the media, transfer stories provide stock phrases, which are almost becoming cliches. “Preliminary talks,” “advanced discussions”, “talks ongoing”, “personal terms”, “showdown talks” - the list is growing.

Such phrases evoke images of a group of people – players, agents, chairmen, managers – sat around a table sliding pieces of paper with figures on them to each other, to be greeted by a shake of the head and an ‘add a nought on to that and come back, matey.’

Again, the reality is very different.

‘Negotiation’ meetings are often brief, with an agent laying out a player’s demands, and an official (usually the chief executive, the head of recruitment or the director of football) giving the club’s side of things.

Read More

Issues which arise during negotiations often relate to, of course, salary, bonuses and signing-on fees, as well as personal and social considerations.

Players often leave the negotiations to their agents, and are kept abreast of the situation from afar.

They usually meet with a manager before a deal goes through to discuss how he would fit in at his potential new club - and if they don’t, then they’re taking a huge risk - but in terms of sitting round a negotiating table discussing figures? Rarely.

Harry Maguire

The players’ dilemma

This is the age of ‘player power’ in football, and there is little doubt that in transfer deals, it is they who hold the key.

Fair enough, some would say.

After all, it is their lives who will change.

Considerations for a player prior to a transfer include how much playing time they would get if they moved clubs, whether they would need to re-locate (or learn a new language), whether they would be happy to work for the buying club’s manager and, particularly as you go down the leagues, the length of contract.